CHAPTER XLIX.—ALICE PERCEIVES THE ERROR OF HER WAYS.
“M y dear Alice, what has changed you so completely? You have lost your spirits, and appear to take a dark, morbid view of life. You find a thousand faults with things and people you used to be perfectly satisfied with; and you look thin and ill. Are you unwell?” inquired Mrs. Hazlehurst of her daughter, after Alice had been staying some days at the Grange. They were sitting together in Mrs. Hazlehurst’s morning room, which commanded an extensive view across the park. Alice’s eyes had been for some minutes fixed upon one particular spot, and as she gazed they filled with tears—it was the stile leading to the shady walk wherein Harry had first told his love, and the sight of it called up a host of tender recollections. How different was the bright, sunny, trusting affection which she then felt for him, from her present perturbed state of mind!—in which jealousy of Arabella Crofton and estrangement from her husband (springing originally from his neglect and injustice, and kept alive by the untoward events of their London season) contended with a love, the strength of which was proved by the wretchedness all these doubts and misunderstandings caused her. Scarcely hearing her mother’s question, she replied, mechanically, “No, that she was not ill,” and relapsed into her train of gloomy musing. Mrs. Hazlehurst regarded her in anxious silence for a few moments, then observed abruptly—
“Alice, you never speak of your husband now; yet, when you were first married, your letters were full of his praises, and you could neither talk nor write of anything but Harry’s perfections. How is this?”
“Oh! one cannot be always a baby,” was the reply. “While I was a new plaything, Mr. Coverdale spoiled me, and made much of me; and I was child enough to be delighted with his attentions—to fancy they would always continue the same, and that life would prove a path of roses, so I rhapsodised about it accordingly. I have now found out my mistake, and indulge in raptures no longer—that is all!” She strove to speak lightly and carelessly, but her tearful eyes and quivering lips belied the sense of her words. Her mother saw it, and could abstain no longer.
“Alice, my child, you are unhappy,” she said; “it is useless to attempt to conceal it. Come, tell me what it is. You know of old that I am to be trusted, and who so fit as your mother to confide in?—who so well able to sympathise with—and perhaps to counsel you?” As she spoke, she passed her arm caressingly round Alice’s slender waist, and drew her towards her. For a minute or so Alice submitted passively to her embrace, then, with an hysterical sob, she flung her arms round her and burst into a passion of tears. Mrs. Hazlehurst allowed her to weep in silence, until the violence of her grief had in some measure subsided, then, by degrees, drew from her an account, at first broken and disjointed, but becoming fuller and more coherent as she proceeded, of all her woes, real and imaginary, with which the reader is already acquainted.
“And now, mamma dearest, how can I ever again be happy, knowing as I do that Harry is still attached to that dreadful woman, and that he regrets his marriage with me more because it places a bar between them, than because I have disappointed him by not proving the spiritless, tender, and affectionate doll he fancied me when I first married? I—I almost wish I was, for then perhaps I could make him happy, and I’m sure I don’t now!” She paused, then resting her head against her mother’s shoulder, added, “Mamma—you will tell me honestly—do you think I have behaved very ill?”
“I certainly cannot exonerate you from blame, my poor child; there have been, as it seems to me, serious faults on both sides. Mr. Coverdale’s appear to me to have proceeded more from thoughtlessness than from intention; while yours, I am both sorry and surprised to find, seem chiefly to have arisen from warmth of temper.”
“Yes, I see it now; and yet you know, mamma, I am not really ill-tempered—at least, I never used to be; but you know I loved, or,” she added with a sigh, “I may say I love Harry so very dearly, that the slightest neglect or unkindness on his part appears such a cruel return for my affection that I cannot bear it quietly; if I were not to lose my temper and get angry about it, I should pine away and die—I know I should!”
“Did you ever tell him this?” inquired Mrs. Hazlehurst.
Alice shook her head. “One does not tell such things,” she said; “if Harry cared for my affection he would soon perceive how entirely I love him; if, as I fear, he is indifferent to it, all the telling in the world would make no difference; besides, I have heard from his own lips that he loves another.”
“I do not make out that affair at all,” observed Mrs. Hazlehurst, reflectively; “it is so completely unlike Mr. Coverdale’s straightforward, honest character, to marry one woman when he cared for another, that I cannot but think there must be some mistake about it.”
“How can there be any mistake, dear mamma?” was the rejoinder. “I have long felt certain that Miss Crofton was attached to Harry; and I myself heard him say to her that he was most unfortunate, because love which he could not return was lavished upon him (meaning mine), while he had alienated by his own act (his marriage of course) the only affection he cared to possess (that is Arabella Crofton’s): I do not know what could be clearer.”
“Did you not say that Mr. Coverdale appeared aware that he had neglected you for his sporting, and blamed himself for so doing?”
“Yes; I think he knows it, and is sorry for it—and—and he does not leave me nearly so much alone as he used; only I fancied—that is, I was afraid he did so from a sense of duty, and not because it was a pleasure to him to stay with me. Harry has a very strict sense of duty.”
“You say he seems to doubt your affection,” continued Mrs. Hazlehurst, “and you own you conceal it from him, treating him to bursts of pettishness and ill-humour, of which you refuse to explain the cause. You also tell me that this Miss Crofton appears to have been attached to Mr. Coverdale; now, from what you have told me of the way in which you behaved at Lady Trottemout’s party—which I confess I think was both foolish and wrong—I can easily conceive your husband to have been greatly annoyed with you; and it seems to me that nothing would be more natural than for him to have told, or in some way to have allowed Miss Crofton to perceive his annoyance; in which case, as I fear she must be a designing, unprincipled woman, she might avail herself of the opportunity to contrast her own affection with your disobedience and petulance. Thus your husband’s speech, on which you have built up all this alarming fabric of future unhappiness, may be interpreted much more satisfactorily: as, for instance, the affection lavished on him, which he could not return, might be Miss Crofton’s, and the love he coveted, yours, which he by his own neglect had alienated. Do you perceive?”
“Oh yes, mamma!” exclaimed Alice, eagerly, her face lighting up with the ray of hope thus given her; “I see it really might mean that! Oh, if I dare but believe it was so!”
She paused to reflect, and as the recollection of Harry’s frank, earnest face, and simple, truthful manner came across her, when in their last discussion he had told her there was not, and never had been, anything between himself and Miss Crofton which need give her uneasiness, she, for the first time since Lady Tattersall Trottemout’s soirée, allowed herself to hope that she had mistaken the meaning of the words she had overheard; that her husband still loved her; that she had only to show him how these troubles and estrangements had served but to prove to her the depth and reality of their mutual affection; and that, warned by past experience to bear and forbear, a life of happiness still awaited them.
“No one could be more averse than I am to raise false hopes,” resumed Mrs. Hazlehurst; “but I really believe, from my previous knowledge of Mr. Coverdale’s character, as well as from all you have told me to-day, that my interpretation of the enigmatical speech is the true one.”
“If it is, dearest mamma, I shall owe the whole happiness of my life to you,” exclaimed Alice, enthusiastically; “already I feel as if a load which had been crushing me to the earth was taken off my shoulders: the thought that Harry preferred that woman to me haunted me continually, and embittered my existence. Even now,” she continued, sorrowfully, “as long as the fact of Harry’s refusal to tell me what has passed between them remains unaccounted for, I cannot feel quite satisfied.”
“Do you know, Alice, I think you are evincing extreme narrow-mindedness in these unworthy suspicions; if you do not take yourself seriously to task, and strive to overcome this very grave fault in your character, I am afraid the evil you so much dread—the loss of your husband’s affection, may come upon you after all; but it will be solely to your own ungenerous mistrust that you will owe it. I do not wish to distress you,” she continued, as Alice burst into tears at this the most severe rebuke she had ever received from her mother’s lips; “but if I did not tell you what I believe to be the truth, I should fail in my duty to you.”
Alice wept for some moments in silence, then drying her tears, she said in a submissive, child-like manner, “I have done very, very wrong; advise me, mamma, and I will try and act according to your wishes.”
Mrs. Hazlehurst drew Alice towards her, and kissing her pale cheek affectionately, replied:
“My advice is this, love; when you return home, do not enter upon any of these matters which have been subjects of dissension between you and Mr. Coverdale; and should he do so, take care to reply gently and without irritation, remembering that ‘a meek and quiet spirit is a woman’s chiefest ornament;’ for the rest, try and make yourself as pleasant and agreeable as you can to him. Let him perceive your affection in the thousand constantly-recurring trifles of which a loving woman can avail herself for such a purpose, but be careful not to bore him with it at unsuitable times; above all, do not be exigeante, and expect or desire him to give up his sporting tastes, or his love of farming, or even the society of his gentlemen friends for your sake: you could not do it if you would, and you would only deteriorate his frank, manly character if you were to succeed. At the same time you may, by your influence, lead him to cultivate some of his more refined pursuits, into which you can enter with him. He sings charmingly; get him to keep up his music, procure the cleverest and best-written books, and persuade him to read and discuss them with you. His clear intellect and strong good sense will be of the greatest use in expanding and forming your mind, and supplying the deficiencies which my ill-health has occasioned in your education. I see I need not go farther into detail—you understand me.”
“Oh yes, mamma! and if I were but able to realize the picture you have drawn of our domestic life, how happy we might yet be! but I will try my very best, only I feel so weak, and sometimes so wicked; if I were but as wise and good as you—but I will try. Ah! if I had done so at first, I should have had so much easier a task—however, they say it is never too late to mend.” She paused, sighed deeply, then continued: “Emily comes home to-morrow; I will write to Harry to send for me the next day, and then—and then—Mamma, do you think I shall succeed?”
At the very moment Alice was thus repenting the past, and forming good resolutions for the future, Harry, with gloomy brow and clenched teeth, was striding impatiently up and down his library, holding in his hand a sealed letter—it was addressed to his wife, and the writing was Lord Alfred Courtland’s. “So,” he muttered, “so, not content with amusing (that’s the phrase now-a-day) himself during his London season by dangling after my wife, he must try to keep up the thing now she is away—foolish young idiot!—but I feel sure that scoundrel D’Almayne is at the bottom of it, setting him on for some purpose of his own. Well, I’ve borne it patiently—more patiently than one man in fifty would have done—nobody can say I’ve been rash or hasty in this matter; but it’s time to act, and when I do begin, I’ll astonish them. I’ll take Alfred Courtland off to his father, and tell him the boy’s not fit to be trusted alone. If he won’t go, I’ll horsewhip him; and as to D’Almayne, by the Heaven above me, I’ll shoot him like a dog! such a scoundrel is not fit to live! it would be a benefit to society to rid it of such a fellow. But I may be wrong; I said I would do nothing hastily in this business, and I’ll be true to my word. I’ll wait till Alice comes home, give her the letter myself, and ask her to show it to me. If she refuses, or if it contains such matter as I expect, I shall then know how to act.”